The biggest lesbian party on the planet, The Dinah, just keeps getting bigger and better year after year. At 25, there is no stopping it, with hit-makers Meghan Trainor and Christina Perri headlining the party.
At the prime of the "lesbian spring break's" youth, The Dinah continues to attract the hottest female entertainers, DJs, go-go dancers and of course upward of more than 15,000 bikini-clad beautiful women from around the world to sunny Palm Springs, California.
This year won't be any different come April 1 through 5. It's just bigger and better with headliners Trainor ("All About that Bass") taking the stage at Saturday night's Black Party and Perri ("A Thousand Years") getting the crowds going onstage at Friday night's White Party.
The big celebration of The Dinah's silver anniversary features two female headliners who are ratcheting up the pop charts for the first time, said Mariah Hanson, producer of the Club Skirt's The Dinah.
"I cannot tell you how exciting it is to bring this caliber of entertainment to our community," said Hanson. "It's legacy-creating. If The Dinah can stand out as this really hip lesbian event that has some of the most top notch entertainers in the nation, I think that's a pretty cool gift to the community."
The party also features emerging female performers Bebe Rexha and Ivy Levan, along with E11even, Holychild, and Olivia Somerlyn and chart-topping favorites Crystal Waters ("Gypsy Woman") and Rose Royce ("Car Wash").
The Dinah wouldn't be The Dinah without its lesbian comedians. Mainstay Suzanne Westenhoefer is a part of the comedy lineup that also includes Gloria Bigelow, Dana Goldberg, and Dinah Leffert.
The Dinah isn't all about the party. It's also making a statement about the community and doing some good from Hanson's perspective.
She argues that attracting the best and brightest talent to The Dinah year after year can be a "political statement."
"After 25 years of producing events in this community comes a responsibility to create meaning in what you do and so I live that every day," said Hanson. Such a focus is developed by Hanson's four-member team that grows to 50 during the weeklong event.
Every year the team includes a benefit event to raise money for an LGBT organization.
The celebrity poker tournament benefiting the Human Rights Campaign has been a permanent fixture at The Dinah, and raises thousands of dollars for LGBT rights.
The poker tournament along with the film festival won't happen this year, said Hanson, due to the additional headliner, but the events will be back next year.
This year, a celebrity beer pong tournament will raise money for HRC and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
"It's the responsibility of LGBT Americans to give back to our community, and that doesn't necessarily mean money we can give back in our time," said Hanson, pointing out that the LGBT rights movement isn't done yet.
"Even when we have full marriage equality, for instance, that doesn't mean that we have full acceptance in this country to live our lives out loud and proud and with equality and respect," continued Hanson. "Until that day, we all have a responsibility to our community to stick with our civil rights movement."
Diamond in the Rough
This year's party doesn't look anything like how it all began back in 1972, nearly 20 years before Hanson, who is from Sonoma County, and Los Angeles' the Girl Bar promoters, Robin Gans and Sandy Sachs, saw an opportunity in the early 1990s.
Palm Springs was long a retreat for Hollywood A-listers and celebrities and LGBT vacationers. It was also the spot for the Colgate Dinah Shore Golf Championship, now known as the Ladies Professional Golf Association's Kraft Nabisco Championship.
The golf tournament was started by popular Big Band era entertainer and 1970s TV personality Dinah Shore, who was born Frances Rose Shore on February 19, 1916.
But Shore wasn't exactly a feminist. She was famously quoted, "I owe everything -my success and happiness- to men," a sentiment reflected in one of her hit songs, "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House."
However, she was an avid golfer and supporter of women's professional golf, which she lent her star power to boost the then-underfunded LPGA and women golfers.
Today, it is one of the four major golf tournaments on the LPGA tour. Last year, Kraft Nabisco didn't renew its contract to sponsor the tournament. In November, the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau announced that Ana Inspiration, formerly All Nippon Airways, took over sponsorship of the LPGA championship. Ana Inspiration is Japan's leading airline.
Lesbians have a thing for women athletes - golf produced its own professional lesbian golfers - so naturally a lesbian following grew. Shore also wasn't known for being a supporter of LGBT rights, but she never publicly commented about her tournament and name being hijacked by lesbians. The producers of the golf championship have repeatedly stated it had no problem with the lesbian parties being loosely associated with the golf tournament.
However, lesbian golf and Dinah fans disagreed and in 1994, after Shore's death, her name was quickly removed from the golf championship.
Dinah Shore's name lives on through the parties. A sculpture of Shore also demarks the plaques of the tournament winners - some lesbian - along the green at Mission Hills Country Club golf course, where the tournament is hosted.
In the early 1990s, Dinah Shore Weekend was a readymade lesbian event in a resort town already popular with the LGBT community, a women's golf event, celebrities, sunshine, and more it was ripe for a new generation of party promoters.
The California lesbian promoters who lived out loud and proud and were known for throwing parties with sexy go-go dancers and the hottest DJs spinning the latest dance hits teamed up and upped the ante. They took the lesbian parties surrounding the golf championship out of airline hangers, dodgy bars, and house parties and brought them into Palm Spring's best venues as a new generation of lesbian partiers came of age.
Hanson, Gans and Sachs partnership split up in 2006. Since then Hanson took Palm Springs and Gans and Sachs took their Dinah party to Las Vegas.
Dinah Today
A quarter century later, The Dinah has grown from "lesbian spring break" into the largest women's music festival. Record executives vie to have their top female performers at The Dinah, but the party hasn't lost its lesbian fans. It's a feat that Hanson is proud of.
"I think that I produce an incredible event," said Hanson, who focuses on bringing top-notch entertainment and throwing the best parties to keep women coming back year after year. "Between those two elements we are giving people a reason to continue to keep coming to the event."
The Dinah's stages have seen Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, the Pussy Cat Dolls, Tegan and Sara, and more. The Dinah has graced the small screen on Show Time's The L Word and rolled out the red carpet for celesbians and even produced a small film festival during the weeklong festivities during recent years.
Say Hollywood, a regular guest at The Dinah, keeps coming back because of the entertainment, pool parties, beautiful women from all over the world and the friendships she's made.
"I will never go to any other circuit ever again besides going to Mariah's The Dinah," said Hollywood, a 40-something lesbian partygoer who has gone to many lesbian circuit parties across the U.S. "I think that it's phenomenal."
She will be at The Dinah this year with her friends, enjoying the entertainment and the pool parties. She said she's looking forward to seeing Trainor perform as well as Royce and Waters.
"I really love my community," said Hanson. "I understand the importance of the Dinah Shore Weekend in our community. I understand that it's a bucket list, a rite of passage. It's a celebration and I'm committed to continuing that because that's my gift back."
She hopes that Dinah guests feel special long after they leave the event.
"What we want them to take with them when they leave is that they are worth it, that living out loud is the best way to live."
The Dinah is April 1-5. Passes are still available. Individual events $10 - $100; Weekend Passes: General $269 / VIP $600. www.thedinah.com